The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception

James J. Gibson offered a new visual perception theory, opposed to the gestalt psychology. In this post, let me explain general concept of it.

Visual Perception of Gestalt Psychology

Before Gibson, perception theories like that of Gestalt psychology suggested that all perceptions, including visual perceptions, are based on one’s experience and the cognitive organs (a reference for the theory would be “metaphors we live by”). In other words, in order to perceive the world, one must already have ideas about it.

According to Prof. Gibson, however, it is circular reference of perception, since if a new perception requires a preceding experience within one’s mind, one needs to already have the new experience, before he or she experiences it.

Ecological Approach to Visual Perception

To overcome the problem of circular reference, professor Gibson came up with the ecological approach to visual perception. The hypothesis assumes that the inner system of human being does not construct the perception based on stimulus, but the environment in itself provides its information for our direct perception (the notion about the direct perception is called information pickup theory). According to the hypothesis, the perception of the environment is based on invariant-extraction from the flux, not based on a sequence of snapshots. The style of perception is ecological, because the perception is not made solely by human beings, but by the interrelationship among the constituents of the environment. Gestalt theory requires gestalt within one’s mind, but the ecological approach to visual perception requires gestalt within the environment.

Related to prof. Gibson’s visual perception theory, there are some important concepts. I would like to mention about them.

One is the interrelationship between subject and object in visual perception. Prof. Gibson claimed that one perceives both environment and oneself at the same time. It is in some sense obvious: when we walk around, we see our legs as well as the changing sight of the outer environment. When we look around the environment, whatever goes out of sight comes into sight, and what ever comes into sight goes out of sight.

“The head turns, and whatever way in back of the head at one time will be in front of the head of another and vice versa. This fact is fundamental for the theory of perception.” (page 112)

Another is affordance theory. Affordances are all action possibilities latent in the environment, objectively reasonable and independent of the individuals’ ability to recognize them, but always in relation to the action and therefore dependent on the individuals’ capabilities. According to the theory, the world is perceived not only in terms of object shapes and spatial relationship but also in terms of object possibility of action (affordance). For instance, when we are looking at a building (environment), we know that the image changes (affordance), when we walk around the building. Gibson argued that we perceive the affordances because of our life needs: environments offer benefit, injury, life, death, and the other critical effects.

The third is our direct perception of layout. When we look at the sight of a road, we perceive it neither as 2 dimensional nor as 3 dimensional. Instead, we perceive it as a layout, prof. Gibson argued. For example, when we look at a sight and estimate the distance from here to the building over there, we can estimate the distance not because we are able to perceive the visual environment in 3D, but because we just directly understand the layout of the things in the environment: for instance, if the road is made of bricks, we will be able to estimate the distance from here to the building by counting approximately how many bricks are there between here and there. This concept of direct visual perception explains why we sometimes wrongly estimate the distance.

Remarks

It was a tough book to fathom the concept. The explanation of direct perception theory was difficult to follow, but after spending some days, I finally realize what he said. What he offered was a Copernican change in perception theory, which was quite interesting and worth for deep consideration. With that said, I still don’t quite understand which theory is correct: direct or indirect visual perception. Especially, I don’t know why we can say that the experience has no impact on our way of perception. The argument is a bit counter-intuitive.

Reference

James J. Gibson, “The Ecological Approach To Visual Perception”, 1986/10/13, Psychology Press

The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception

James J. Gibson offered a new visual perception theory, opposed to the gestalt psychology. In this post, let me explain general concept of it.

Visual Perception of Gestalt Psychology

Before Gibson, perception theories like that of Gestalt psychology suggested that all perceptions, including visual perceptions, are based on one’s experience and the cognitive organs (a reference for the theory would be “metaphors we live by”). In other words, in order to perceive the world, one must already have ideas about it.

According to Prof. Gibson, however, it is circular reference of perception, since if a new perception requires a preceding experience within one’s mind, one needs to already have the new experience, before he or she experiences it.

Ecological Approach to Visual Perception

To overcome the problem of circular reference, professor Gibson came up with the ecological approach to visual perception. The hypothesis assumes that the inner system of human being does not construct the perception based on stimulus, but the environment in itself provides its information for our direct perception (the notion about the direct perception is called information pickup theory). According to the hypothesis, the perception of the environment is based on invariant-extraction from the flux, not based on a sequence of snapshots. The style of perception is ecological, because the perception is not made solely by human beings, but by the interrelationship among the constituents of the environment. Gestalt theory requires gestalt within one’s mind, but the ecological approach to visual perception requires gestalt within the environment.

Related to prof. Gibson’s visual perception theory, there are some important concepts. I would like to mention about them.

One is the interrelationship between subject and object in visual perception. Prof. Gibson claimed that one perceives both environment and oneself at the same time. It is in some sense obvious: when we walk around, we see our legs as well as the changing sight of the outer environment. When we look around the environment, whatever goes out of sight comes into sight, and what ever comes into sight goes out of sight.

“The head turns, and whatever way in back of the head at one time will be in front of the head of another and vice versa. This fact is fundamental for the theory of perception.” (page 112)

Another is affordance theory. Affordances are all action possibilities latent in the environment, objectively reasonable and independent of the individuals’ ability to recognize them, but always in relation to the action and therefore dependent on the individuals’ capabilities. According to the theory, the world is perceived not only in terms of object shapes and spatial relationship but also in terms of object possibility of action (affordance). For instance, when we are looking at a building (environment), we know that the image changes (affordance), when we walk around the building. Gibson argued that we perceive the affordances because of our life needs: environments offer benefit, injury, life, death, and the other critical effects.

The third is our direct perception of layout. When we look at the sight of a road, we perceive it neither as 2 dimensional nor as 3 dimensional. Instead, we perceive it as a layout, prof. Gibson argued. For example, when we look at a sight and estimate the distance from here to the building over there, we can estimate the distance not because we are able to perceive the visual environment in 3D, but because we just directly understand the layout of the things in the environment: for instance, if the road is made of bricks, we will be able to estimate the distance from here to the building by counting approximately how many bricks are there between here and there. This concept of direct visual perception explains why we sometimes wrongly estimate the distance.

Remarks

It was a tough book to fathom the concept. The explanation of direct perception theory was difficult to follow, but after spending some days, I finally realize what he said. What he offered was a Copernican change in perception theory, which was quite interesting and worth for deep consideration. With that said, I still don’t quite understand which theory is correct: direct or indirect visual perception. Especially, I don’t know why we can say that the experience has no impact on our way of perception. The argument is a bit counter-intuitive.

James J. Gibson, “The Ecological Approach To Visual Perception”, 1986/10/13, Psychology Press

Reading list - Apr to Dec 2012

Forgot to announce the reading list. I would read the followings from April.

We have a very rough reading group. We just have a general discussion on the book every Sunday 10am at Shibuya, Tokyo. If you live in Japan and were interested in it, please feel free to join us.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/236714033071380/

2012/Apr 01: M. Olson, ''The Logic of Collective Action"

2012/Apr 08: P. Grice, ''Studies in the Way of Words"

2012/Apr 15: J. Austin, ''How to Do Things with Words"

2012/Apr 22: B. Anderson, ''Imagined Communities"

2012/Apr 29: M. Foucault, ''Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison"

2012/May 06: J. A. Schumpeter, ''Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy: Third Edition"

2012/May 13: H. Simon, ''The Sciences of the Artificial"

2012/May 20: M. Castelles, ''The Rise of the Network Society"

2012/May 27: M. Rosenberg, ''Society and the Adolescent Self-Image"

2012/Jun 03: N. Chomsky, ''The Minimalist Program "

2012/Jun 10: L. S. Vygotsky, ''Thought and Language "

2012/Jun 17: M. Polanyi, ''The Tacit Dimension "

2012/Jun 24: A. Giddens, ''The Consequences of Modernity "

2012/Jul 01: E. H. Erickson, ''Childhood and Society "

2012/Jul 08: H. Simon, J. March, ''Organizations"

2012/Jul 15: J. A. Schumpeter, ''Theory of Economic Development"

2012/Jul 22: D. Harvey, ''The Condition of Postmodernity"

2012/Jul 29: G. S. Becker, ''A Treatise on the Family"

2012/Aug 05: K. Popper, ''The Logic of Scientific Discovery "

2012/Aug 12: P. Bourdieu, ''Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste"

2012/Aug 19: N. Chomsky, ''Aspects of the Theory of Syntax"

2012/Aug 26: P. Bourdieu, ''Outline of a Theory of Practice "

2012/Sep 02: U. Beck, ''Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity "

2012/Sep 09: P. L.. Berger, ''The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge "

2012/Sep 16: N. Chomsky, ''Some Concepts and Consequences of the Theory of Government and Binding "

2012/Sep 23: K. Arrow, ''Social Choice and Individual Values, Second edition "

2012/Sep 30: E. Said, ''Orientalism"

2012/Oct 07: G. H. Mead, ''Mind, Self and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist"

2012/Oct 14: D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, A. Tversky, ''Judgment under Uncertainty"

2012/Oct 21: J. Butler, ''Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity "

2012/Oct 28: A. Giddens, ''The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration "

2012/Nov 04: H. Simon, ''Administrative Behavior, 4th Edition "

2012/Nov 11: E. Goffman, ''Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity "

2012/Nov 18: J. Bowlby, ''Attachment: Second Edition (Attachment and Loss Series, Vol 1)"

2012/Nov 25: G. Bateson, ''Steps to an Ecology of Mind "

2012/Dec 02: J. Fodor, ''The Modularity of Mind "

2012/Dec 09: D. O. Hebb, ''The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory "

2012/Dec 16: J. R. Anderson, ''The Architecture of Cognition"

2012/Dec 23: R. K. Merton, ''On Social Structure and Science "

2012/Dec 30: J. Dewey, ''Experience and Education"

Foundation of Social Theory

James S. Coleman authored a huge book to contain his whole idea of sociology. Title of the book is “Foundation of Social Theory”.

Methodology and the Assumption
The way that the book explains human behavior of the social system is to examine the process internal to the system, involving its component parts, or units at a level below that of the system. The approach includes both qualitative and quantitative analyses; he used large parts of the book for the qualitative explanation of his idea, and later came up with mathematical model to describe the essence, although the mathematical attempt would not be as successful as the economists do.

He focused on lower-level approach in analyzing the social system. Prof. Coleman mentioned reasons of this approach:

• The statistics data is limited, and what can be said is limited accordingly


• Lower-level explanation is more useful for intervention into the actual situation than is the general explanation


• The explanation at lower level is more stable, general and fundamental than the explanation of system level


• Explanation at system level cannot treat freedom, equality and the other values, which are parts of the essence of human nature

Professor Coleman applied the framework of micro-macro interaction. In this framework, the macro situation creates micro-level incentives, by which individuals make purposive action, collection of which will bring about macro-level changes. The following is the example.

In his framework, purposive action plays the central role in the dynamics of social change, and therefore the understanding the reason of human behavior is crucial to analyze the social change. Coleman made an assumption of rationality for human behaviors, i.e. he made the assumption that human beings behave in order to maximize his/her utility.

Subsets of the system
In his lower-level approach, Professor Coleman classified subsets of the whole system, under which people take purposive action. He made the image of the subsets (below picture).

• Private actions: Purposive action that is scarcely social


• Exchange relation: exchange of rights and resources not within a market or other systems of exchange


• Market: exchange within a system but not involving a transfer of rights to control one’s actions


• Disjoint authority relations: exchange in which one actor gives up rights to control his actions. In all sorts of authority relations/systems, subordinate’s action seems to be irrational in light of individual rational behavior (i.e. maximizing one’s utility). The reason is those relations/systems, he is following superordinate’s interest. The example is principal-agency relationship


• Conjoint authority relations: one actor unilaterally gives up to another the rights. An example is charismatic authority relations


• Relations of trust: unilateral transfer of resources


• Disjoint authority system: authority system based on rationality


• Conjoint authority systems: authority system based on charisma


• Systems of trust (collective behavior): system of relations that arise through unilateral transfer


• Norm generating structures: actions with externalities. The condition of existence of norms is (1) there is demand for effective norm and (2) the demand is satisfied by the norms and the associated sanction system. The norm is internalized: individuals come to have an internal sanctioning system which provides punishment when he carries out an action proscribed by the norms or fails to carry out an action prescribed by the norm. The internalization of norms (like children’s development of moral standard) becomes efficient when (1) many people want to control using norms, (2) the people who use norms do not reap all the benefits from their actions, (3) people can increase overall benefit by using norms, (4) correlationship of community members are high, and (5) there exists information asymmetry among the participants


• Collective decision structure: events with consequences for many actors. To be a part of a bureaucratic system or to be involved in panic are the example of collective behavior. The behavior seems to be irrational, but in fact they are out of one’s rational decision making, the author argues. For instance, becoming a member of a corporation means giving up certain rights. The legitimacy would be (1) voice (he/she can participate the decision making process of the organization), (2) exit (he/she can exit from the corporation if it is not what she/he wants), and (3) revoking (he/she can change the structure of the system, whose radical form is revolution)

Change of the social structures in modern society and the needs for new social science
Professor Coleman argues that there are changes in the social structures. The change is so significant that one nation’s legislatures cannot design institution that will satisfactory cope with social changes, and we need new social science, he claims.

The change of the social structure is as follows: the main actors of the society have changed from primordial family-based-organizations to purposive and global companies. In these days, the number and influence of family owned companies are waning, and instead there came gigantic corporations, most of which are purely purposive company, not driven by family ties or bondages of community. Accordingly, the economic system shifted from household economy to closely interrelated economy.

Professor Coleman argues that, under the circumstances, we are losing social capital. Social Capital, originally introduced by Loury (1977;1987), is the set of resources that inhere in family relations and in community social organization and that are useful for cognitive or social development of a child or a young person. Social capital brings about important advantage for the development of human capital.

As community is losing its power, we are also loosing unwritten mutual understanding to be shared by participants of the organization. Essentially, social choice includes certain problems, as especially when some actors have significant power over others, social choice could be less efficient as it works to maximize utilities of those with powers. To ameliorate the problem, people come up with legislature and enact laws. However, the law is not perfect; the effective constitution of a group, organization, or social system is far broader than the written document and includes the unwritten norms and rules, as well as the written ones. Social capital has filled the gap between the scope of the whole social system and the scope stipulated in the laws. In other words, the society works because of certain unwritten mutual understanding is shared among the participants or the organization, but as communities and social capital fade and purely functional companies gain more powers, the communication and collective actions are getting more difficult. He claims new social science must be there to fix the issues.


Remarks
Economics influence
For many parts of his analysis, the author may be just following what the economists had done many years ago. In fact, he seems to be influenced by economics and applied the methodology of economics in his sociology analysis, but that part may not be worth reading. If you want to know what can be said from the perspective of economics, you can just read the books of economists. Professor Coleman should be a great sociologist, but he is nothing but an amateur economist.


Characteristics of non-institutional social choice
He mentioned the characteristics of non-institutional social choice, which is quite valuable to manage my NGO. He said that, without the intervention of authority, the social choice would be as follows (page 394):
- Individuals in the organization use powers, which are relevant in decision making. Openness doesn’t work when power is highly skewed, as people with less power engage in sycophancy
- Normative pressure toward consensus exists, i.e. the organization will be homogenous
- The decision making is path dependent: past results of the social choice affect the current decision

The implication is huge to me. First of all, my NGO’s guiding principle stipulates radical openness for the sake of fairness and motivation to work, but that alone may not be enough. There should be some rules which curtail someone’s power.

Second, the more an organization continues to make decisions, the more the organization becomes homogeneous, and that will lead to the lack of innovation. Interaction with the outside group is crucial to keep on organization innovative.

Third, to learn from the past is virtue, but that could be the shackle in some cases. There always could be confusions between causal relationship and co-occurrence of the events. Trying to verbalize the reason of the results out of the past social decision could help to avoid the pitfall.


Reference:
James Coleman, “Foundations of Social Theory”, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Reprint Edition (1998/8/19)